Fandom Chat Room
Hello hello,
glad to see you were curious enough to check out this post :D
The idea was born kinda on a whim, really. I haven't seen a fandom chat around yet where people can just hang out to make friends, share (story) ideas, meet your favorite writer (if present XD) to ask questions or express your love for their stuff, just talk crazy or maybe even are inspired to RP together. After talking to someone about this chat possibility, I decided to give it a go and create one.
On this post, you'll find the chat room rules, a few basic things about the chat and, of course, explanations on how to access it. Once you got it set up once, it's really easy for the future. Of course, you can always leave a comment if you need help.
So, here we go!
The chat itself is hosted on an IRC server. Some of you might know/still remember mIRC, which was a big go in the past before all the messengers came up and offered more fancy surfaces, emoticons etc.
Advantages:
=> Many people can be in the same room at once to talk/be crazy without the risk of crashing (I've been in rooms with 60 users and more)
=> For you writing folks, there is the possibility of creating temporary (meaning for the time you're all online and active there) channels where you can RP with one or more people in private.
=> While being in the main chat room, you can use private/query windows to talk to one user in particular in private
=> That server hardly has any downtime
=> The chat is very basic, so you don't have to fear being spammed by massive amounts of emoticons or the like
=> Filesends are possible in IRC as well
You see, it's a fairly fair thing.
And now, since there's just no way to avoid those in bigger groups:
=> While this is a slash-friendly fandom chat, of course you don't have to talk strictly about the band or slash or whatever. Talk about God and the world! :D But if two of you are having a private conversation that no one else is involved in, please stick to private chatting (you can achieve that by double-clicking on the person's username. A new window for private chatting will open) and don't spam the actual chat room.
=> No flaming, bashing or harrassing present or not-present chat room users. Just like everywhere else in this fandom, this is a big no no. If you have problems with someone, solve it in private with them, but don't publically run them down in the chat room. If we catch you actively doing that, you'll be kicked from the room first so you can take a moment to think things through. If you continue to do that, whether the channel operators catch you doing that or are informed by other room users (more than one, in this case) that you keep trash-taliking people, you'll be banned from the chat room.
=> Keep the drama at a minimum. You can agree to disagree, but please don't start bitch fights because someone said something about your favorite character/band member/movie etc. that wasn't to your liking. Tastes differ as we know and different opinions should be respected or at least toleraed. If you start a bitch fight, you'll get kicked out or, in the worst case, banned.
=> Channel operators are not there for nothing. If an OP feels it's needed to interfer if anything's the matter, please respect that. We do our best to give everyone their freedom of speech and let everyone have their fun and their discussions etc., but if things get out of hand, we'll step in and say a word or two. Hopefully, everyone can respect it if it happens and not feel berated or treated like a kid.
=> The chat room language is English. Do not fret if your English isn't perfect, no one's gonna laugh at you. But if you wanna talk to someone in another language than English, please do it in a private chat.
=> Bring a good sense of humor and don't be too sensitive. All's in good fun :D
=> Before you get into any extreme NC-17 talk in the main chat room, please make sure no minors are present XD!
Rules shall get edited if the need occurs.
By entering the chat room, you're agreeing to keep these rules in mind and do your best to avoid any drama and instead have a good time with people.
The chat room can be accessed 24/7. There's no time limit, no nothing. It's there, it's registred
And now, the probably most important part? XD I gave three different ways (that I knew of) of how to access the room. Of course, there might be more programs out there that allow you to access IRC. In that case, please help yourself by reading help files XD
HOW TO 001: MIRC
mIRC is the basic program that's been out for quite some time now. I, personally, don't like it too much but for most people, it might be a good way to start if the other two following possibilities of how to access it aren't working for you.
First off, you can get mIRC here. You download the software; I don't think you have to install it but I'm not quite sure. Mine simply opened and started up.
ATTENTION: mIRC says on startup that it's a trial which only works for 30 days. Now, I've used that software in the past and it kept working for me even after 30 days. I don't know how it is now. There IS a danger of the software stopping to work after 30 days. It's enough time for you to try it out - afterwards, I guess you have to decide whether to use another way to access or you find a keygen.
Anyway. Let's pretend you have mIRC downloaded and open. You'll get a window that asks you to enter information.
The chat is on the euIRC server. Before you can go there, though, you have to make the settings. Once you've done all those, mIRC saves them by default so that the next time you start it, you can connect right away.
You're asked for a full name, email address, Nickname and alternative nickname. You can simply enter your (LJ) name as full name. The email address is also important (you'll see at the point with the important commands as to why). As nickname, choose the nickname you wanna use. Of course, to later know who is who or to recognize, it would be best to use your LJ name but it's not a policy or anything.
Now, on the WILD chance that this nickname is in use by someone else (a stranger you don't know) and registred, type in a second (alternative) nickname IRC can use in case your first one is taken.
Now you click on "Server" on the left. You get to the next tab and here you have to set the server to which it needs to connect. This part is the easiest on mIRC, I believe.
You have a long list there. It automatically already selects a server. Scroll up the list (it's sorted alphabetically) and find EUIrc. Double-click:
You get this. Select "Random Server" and double-click again. It takes over all necessary settings. Now you're set. Click OK and the window closes.
At the top left of the main window, you'll find a small icon looking like a lightning bolt. Click on that one and mIRC starts to connect. You get a kickass long text in the window there, looking like this:
As long as it doesn't tell anything about TimeOut, not able to connect etc., if you get all this, it means you're connected.
Now, all you have to do is type in the command to enter the chatroom. This one is fairly easy XD You type:
/join #slash30
and hit enter. And tada, now you should have this:
Welcome to the chat room! LOL.
HOW TO 002: TRILLIAN
For those who don't want to download mIRC but possess some messenger software like Trillian (and before you ask or go look, no, Meebo doesn't have IRC, sadly) that includes many messengers at once, this would be the best thing to use. I personally will stick to using Trillian, because the logging works much better, the surface is nicer AND you don't have to register. Very neat, no?
For those who don't have it and are interested, you can find the FREE software Trillian Basic here.
Okay, once you have this, it'll either ask you at startup to create a new connection (if you use it for the first time) or if you already use it, you probably know how to create a new connection.
Either way, you create a new connection and it offers you all available messengers. Of course, you choose IRC.
You most likely get a window like this one:
You can give the connection (on my example, EUIrc) any name you want, really. You can even call it FandomChat or whatever. Important here is that you type in the server correctly in the second field.
The server name is:
irc.euirc.net
Then it asks you to give your name, nickname and a UserInfo or something? Again, just choose your nickname for that. I think you can leave the last field blank. Now, if you've got all that, click on "Connect". You may want to tell it to automatically connect on startup or not, that is completely up to you. The connection will stay saved.
And now...you see nothing happens right? Yeah, Trillian's a bit weird in that department. If the bright ball is not looking transparent, though, you're connected. Now go to the main window in Trillian, where your buddy list is, and right-click on the IRC ball in the bar up there, like here:
Choose "Show Status Window" and you get that window with the red text like on my example. If you - once again - have a shitload of text there, it should be up and running. Now all you have to do is type in the same command as on example one:
/join #slash30
and you should be in the room :D Tadaaaaa.
HOW TO 003: CHATZILLA IN FIREFOX/MOZILLA
I know a lot, if not all of you, use Firefox.
Anyway - ChatZilla is an AddOn that you can start over TOOLS in the Firefox browser. If you don't have it there yet, look out for it on the Firefox AddOn page.
When you start it, it opens in a new window and gives you some helpful links etc.
Now, to connect to the server where the chat is, you have to type in the following:
/server irc.euirc.net
and enter it. A new tab opens where you - again - get a bunch of text while it connects. Once that is done, as before, all you need to do is type in /join #slash30 and there you are.
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So much for that. I hope either possiblity works for you folks in the future.
If anyone needs help, just let me know.
Now, some important things:
I take it everyone would like to keep their nickname - firstly because it's YOURS, of course and secondly for your own safety. You can register your nickname easy and for free and make sure no one will use or abuse it in the future. Just think someone could log in using your nickname and do shit, eh? Not very fancy.
Anyway - to completely prevent that and assure that your nickname will always be available and always be yours, as soon as you're in the chat room, you should type in the following:
/msg nickserv register password email-address
Use a password of your choice - your email address will tie your nick name to you forever. Here's an example of how to type it:
/msg nickserv register MOOMOO xyz@livejournal.com
You then get a text in the status window (or even the chat window, depending on what you use), confirming that your nick is now registred. From now on, every time you log in on IRC and it connects with your password, it'll ask you to identify, else your nickname will be set to something like Guest205451 or shit like that. It gives you the command to type in, but here it is again, just in case:
/msg nickserv identify yourpasswordhere (in my example: /msg nickserv identify MOOMOO)
It'll recognize you and off you go.
For all of you who are interested, you're invited to spread the word around among your friends and invite them over. As soon as the trial phase looks promising and everything works out fine, I'll start introducing the idea to the fandom communities (or the moderators of the respective community can do so themselves XD) and invite more people over.
Feel free to link to this public post to make needed explanations available for the people on your friends list.
That's it so far. If you wanna come over, say hi :D IRC has many commands that you can find in IRC itself or on Google. You'll see, after a while, it's not too complicated anymore! XD
If there are any questions, just let me know. I'll try to help as good as I can.
Current Chat Moderators:
seasidh
del_rion
We do take applications! XD